


The Wide Vessel of the Universe

by internetname



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:10:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3135668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internetname/pseuds/internetname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rather mushy P/Q PWP that starts with a snowglobe and ends with . . . But that would be telling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wide Vessel of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> The lovely and talented Ruth Gifford and I cowrote this story years ago when I was going by Varoneeka back in the good old days. Here's what Ruth wrote: Well, both Varoneeka and I have had RL situations lately, but we've been working on a few things together. This is one of our BSOs (Bright Shiny Objects), and, as the summery says, it's a bit mushy. The characters and universe are Paramount's, the interpretation is our own. 
> 
> This one is for the Editrix, who loves snowglobes.

It all started with that damn snowglobe. 

It was a present for my birthday, presented to me in the extremely unremarkable fashion of the daily post. One doesn't receive many packages on a starship, it's true, but we were in orbit around DS14 at the time, and, well, these things happen without causing too much concern. 

Even when I opened it, I was hardly shocked or amazed. 

It was, as I said, a snowglobe. A little man stood on a white platform, and the snow fell down around him when the globe was shaken. The man was dressed in Terran clothes, not unlike those worn by the people in LaBarre, or anywhere else in the universe. 

I put the bauble on the shelf, thought for perhaps ten minutes about who the sender might be, and then went to the bridge. I did not think the word "snowglobe" for perhaps another five days. 

I was retrieving my copy of _Bleak House_ when I saw the globe again. A mere glance, absent at best, but it was enough to stop my hand's movement towards the shelf. 

The little man had moved, just slightly, and was now wearing a Starfleet uniform. 

As I brought the globe closer for inspection, I also noticed what I had not before: the face looked just slightly familiar. 

Brown or light black hair was represented on the little doll, and dark eyes. But it wasn't a true likeness of anyone. I could not place the face. 

The next day I checked when I arose from bed, and now the little man was in beachwear. 

Feeling like a bit of a fool, I tried to peer into the globe. The face looked a little more familiar, but I still couldn't place it. The doll's gaily colored beachwear contrasted with the snow swirling around the little figure, and I had to laugh a little. 

It _looked_ like an ordinary snowglobe, one of those silly little low-tech toys from the past that had never lost their appeal. As I stood there looking at the little man in the snowglobe, I remembered the first snowglobe I'd ever had, a small pine forest that existed in perpetual winter until Robert and I, in a rare moment of cooperation, tried to take it apart. 

As I chuckled at the memory, I placed the snowglobe on my desk. I'd had vague thoughts about scanning it to find out how the changes in the figure took place, but instead I decided to let it be. 

Someone was probably congratulating themselves on their cleverness, and I couldn't blame them. It was a small puzzle, a little mystery that I was happy to let develop in its own way. 

Two mornings later, I looked at the snowglobe and discovered that the figure had changed yet again. Now he was wearing the heavy cloth coat and top hat of a Victorian gentleman in winter. His pose had changed as well, he was bending forward, as if leaning into a brisk wind. 

_At least,_ I thought, _he's dressed appropriately._

It was a tall man, I realized from the proportion of the clothes. Tall, dark hair, dark eyes... 

That's when it first occurred to me, as a somewhat unpleasant shock, just who might have sent the globe. 

I admit I almost threw the snowglobe out the nearest airlock. I also looked around my room as though Q might pop out at me, and I'm fairly certain I had my hands in the air, as though Q could ever be warded off. 

But, eventually, I did calm down. The snowglobe, after all, had been harmless so far, and Q has been quite helpful, even beneficial to my life, the last two or three times we've dealt with each other. For all I knew, it could simply be nothing more than it appeared. 

But I knew it was more. 

The romance had gone, so I retrieved a tricorder and scanned the globe...only to find that it was, in fact, a technologically complex device disguised as a low- tech trinket. 

It hadn't, evidently, been Q after all. 

I set down the tricorder and went to bed. Three hours later, staring out the window above my head at the black night through which the Enterprise sails, I had to admit it. 

I was disappointed. 

I had _wanted_ it to be from Q. As much as the prospect had unsettled me, the evidently sentimental act of remembering my birthday with something so...cute had also warmed me. 

"Idiot," I muttered, turning over on my side. "As if he would do such a thing." 

"It was pretty frivolous," Q said, reclining against the headboard, his legs stretched out alongside me. "But then, so are birthdays." 

Every professional instinct I have was telling me to leap out of bed, yell, "Q!" and order him off my ship. Every sense I had was telling me how warm he was, how incredibly sensual the silk pajama pants he wore felt against my skin. He had essentially replaced my pillow with his body and my cheek was pressed against his thigh. I could smell him, spicy and exotic. My senses and my professional instinct began battling it out until his hand stroked my shoulder lightly. 

"Just a little birthday present, Jean-Luc. Is that so wrong?" 

My senses seemed almost to revel in triumph as that smooth, rich voice flowed over me. 

"Does it occur to you, Q," I asked dryly, not intending to let him win _too_ easily, "that maybe, at 71, I'm a little old for a snowglobe?" 

"Then what was it doing on your desk, hmmmm, Mon Capitaine?" 

"Was?" I asked sharply, saddened in some inexplicable way. 

Not only could I hear him chuckle, but I could feel it as well, a faint vibration of his body. "The nightstand, Birthday Boy." 

The snowglobe was resting on my nightstand, and now the Q figure was reclining on a bed wearing nothing but a pair of black silk pajama pants. I couldn't help myself, I slid one arm up past his hips until I met the bare skin of his side. "At least it's accurate now," I said, chuckling myself as I heard and felt a sharp gasp from him. My hand continued to explore all that smooth skin, moving around to his back. My fingers found his spine and another gasp escaped him. 

Well," he said, his voice a little breathless and surprised, "not exactly." 

I heard a snap, saw a flash of light and was suddenly surrounded by tiny particles of light. 

I laughed. Who wouldn't have? The room was filled with falling snow, glittering like starstuff, and as it touched our bodies it melted, a thousand cold little kisses on my arms and legs. 

It didn't melt as it fell about the room, and in moments my quarters were a winterland. 

I realized that right below my mouth curved the swell of Q's belly, and then I was amazed at the ease with which I nuzzled there, feeling his warmth as I had felt no other. 

"Jean-Luc?" Q's voice was almost broken with his own astonishment, and I couldn't help the upsurge of pride I felt in unsettling him so much. 

"Don't you like it?" I asked. 

"I just...if I had know this would do the trick, I'd have tried it long ago!" 

So easy to laugh again, so delicious to wrap my arms around him as the snow covered my life with white. 

"Just...no ideas about shaking up my ship," I murmured, then kissed his hip through the black, snow-damp silk. 

"Shaking up the Q seems to be in-bounds, though." 

I looked up, puzzled by the almost petulant note in Q's voice. I met eyes filled with suspicion, and I sat up. 

"If you don't want this --" 

"Of course I want this! I've wanted it for years!" 

I smiled. Another new type of warmth. "And the problem is...?" 

Q gestured helplessly. "Why now?" 

He did, in fact, deserve some explanation, especially considering everything I was thinking of doing to him right then. 

"Anij." 

"Anij?" 

I sighed. "She was a beautiful, talented, brilliant, adventurous woman. I loved her. I never really even wanted to kiss her." 

Q smiled, the glare of bright sun on a snowbank. "But you want to kiss me?" 

I decided to demonstrate. 

I didn't exactly sit up so much as I slid up his chest. Somehow, the one thin layer of silk between us made everything more erotic. All his heat and the smooth fabric transmitting it to my chest were intoxicating. I had already thought I was more worked up than usual at this stage of things, but now my body began to hum a little more demandingly. 

"No other pajamas," I said as I reached his neck. "Always silk from now on." 

"Silk sheets?" he asked breathlessly. 

I chuckled against his throat, and he gasped. "Mmmm hmmm," I replied as I kissed him right there at the hollow of his neck. 

As I moved up, I became aware that we were surrounded by silk, although there were still drifts of that strange unmelting snow all over the place. A small part of me hoped desperately that this wasn't a dream, but it felt all too real and urgent to be just the product of my imagination. 

Then I reached his mouth and backed off a little to look at him and, more specifically, his mouth. 

There was a point where I could have kissed Anij, and things being what they are between people, we would have moved on from there. But all I could think about when I looked at her mouth was that Q's was much more intriguing. 

And now I could have the kiss I'd wanted for a long time. 

Slowly, I became aware that Q was looking at me rather oddly. His eyes, always dark and full of complexity, were tracing something, some sort of pattern of thought. 

At last I realized it was apprehension. 

And my eyes, I'm certain, conveyed my astonishment. 

Q shrugged defensively, looking very much like he had when we first met, for all that my erection was pressing into his hip. "You're looking at me like I'm a slide in Beverly's lab." 

"I'm thinking about how much I want you, and about how long I've wanted you." 

Q has extraordinary hands. Large and strong and eloquent, and as they slid up my sides I shivered. Then they settled on my waist, and pulled me towards him gently. His lips parted just slightly, and I think I moaned. 

In any event, I certainly needed no further encouragement, and at last I was touching his lips with mine. I had expected warmth, and strength. But I was amazed at the incredible sweetness of them. I thought perhaps he was using his powers, except that it was just...a kiss. A perfect kiss, but just...ha! a kiss. 

But I was lost in it, drowning and soaring. My tongue pressed between his fullness and found a warm, mobile partner. Smooth teeth. And more warmth. And now his tongue was in my mouth, and I sucked gently, savoring this as I had nothing ever before. 

His hands clutched at me a little and I pressed closer, moaning as I felt his heat against my erection. I slid one of my hands up into his hair and he groaned into my mouth. The kiss intensified, as we tested each other's reactions, savoring each idiosyncrasy while it was still new. 

He made noise when I sucked on his tongue, and I pushed myself against him when he back off a little and then went deeper inside. There was so much to learn about kissing each other, that I could have stayed there for hours. Who knows? Maybe we did. At one point I know I was biting his lips while his hands roamed over my back, never going as low as I wanted them to. At another point, he plunged his tongue into my mouth and then did it again and again, reminding me of all the other things I wanted to do with him besides kissing. 

My lips felt swollen when we finally pulled apart, and his also looked a little red. 

"Can you," he asked in that breathless husky voice that kept sending lightening down my spine, "do everything else that well?" 

"You don't know?" I teased, smiling and sliding my fingers through his hair so he knew I was joking. 

He looked down, and then back at me. "Actually, I don't. I didn't want to know." I must have looked surprised. "Why torture yourself with visions of things you can't have?" 

He was trying for his usual flippant, off-the-cuff look and tone of voice, but I still needed to reassure him. 

"You can have the things you want," I said, making my words a promise. "Whatever you want from me." 

"Ohhhh," he moaned and pulled me close again. My mouth moved back to his and the kiss took up again. Yes, that's exactly how it felt, as if we'd paused and were now resuming the same kiss, still new, still exciting, and yet already a little familiar. Of course, that familiarity was the familiarity of someone living with a volcano in their backyard. "Familiar" with Q, I knew then, would never be boring. 

The first time his thumb brushed over my nipple I almost bit through my own tongue. I also moaned, loudly, which had the fortunate result of getting him to do it again. 

It made me want him so fiercely that I simply held on to him tightly and rolled us over, gasping at the incredible pleasure of feeling his weight on my body. When he pulled his lips from mine again, I began to protest, but then he was staring at me in a way that silenced me into pure expectation. 

He smiled, and it was almost Cardassian in its intensity. I shivered, knowing that part of my excitement was from the danger of this. It felt so good to be taking a chance again. When was the last time I had allowed myself the luxury of risk? 

He let the tip of his tongue show, and then he bent his head to my chest. I arched up into it, and writhed when that tongue had settled over my nipple, surrounded now by lips that sucked gently, insistently. I couldn't believe the fire of it. I couldn't withstand the joy of it. I shouted his name, and fingertips were twirling my other nipple and it was all I could not to begin a continuous screaming. 

And when he nipped, lightly, at that tightly puckered skin, it was too much, and I pushed his head gently away. 

"Too much," I managed to explain, hoping I hadn't hurt him or put him off. 

But he only smiled, a Q-blessing, and bent down to kiss me again. 

I let my hands wander over his skin while his mouth worked its magic on me. As I yet again battled with my control, I reminded myself that it had been a long time since I'd made love to anyone, let alone someone I wanted this much. Or had I ever made love to someone I wanted this much? 

My fingers had found his spine, and I traced it from the nape of his neck down to the small of his back. He bucked against me and I felt, through two thin layers of silk, the heat and hard pressure of his erection. Intrigued by the response, I began to trace a firm spiral on that smooth concave. He moved against me again and then again before he tore his mouth from mine and looked at me with pleading eyes. 

"I...get it," he gasped out. 

"What?" 

I stopped teasing his skin and stroked his hips instead, trying to make it more comforting than erotic. Well, for him maybe: to me it was still powerfully erotic, and I restrained myself from grabbing his hips and pulling him hard against me. 

"When you said it was too much," he replied. "I...when you touched me there I almost..." 

I did grab his hips then, just a little. Thrusting up against him, I smiled. "I'll have to remember that." 

"Ohhhh, Jean-Luc," he moaned. "How...what can I...?" 

I knew what he was trying to ask. "I told you already: anything you want." 

I turned my head then and kissed the nearest part of him, which just happened to be the inside of his arm. He drew a ragged breath, and I moved my tongue over that smooth, sensitive skin. Once more he moved against me, almost desperately. 

"I...ohhhhh...I can't...stand it..." 

He really was on the edge. So much so that anything I did was going to be torture if he kept trying to hold back. Still kissing his arm, I moved my hand back to his lower spine and started the spiral again. 

"Q," I murmured into that almost silk-like skin, "let it happen." I nipped at his skin, gently, and he shouted and came. 

It was amazing in so many ways that I was almost completely distracted from the moment. 

Q...you realize, _Q_ was in my arms, writhing as helplessly as any man might during orgasm, and I was keeping him from knocking himself about, or falling off the bed, or whatever might have happened. 

There was warmth along my hip and belly, and it was _Q's_ cum. I wondered if it were truly semen, or some sort of Q-energy or a blend of both. I wondered what it would taste like, what it would feel like inside me. The heat of it seemed almost scalding. 

There was his voice. It's always been his greatest weapon against me. And I suspect the same might be true of mine against him. He was moaning, this long, deep-voiced sound, and it somehow was my name and wordless at the same time. 

There was the smell of him, which I had never really let myself enjoy before: salt and earth and the hint of something like newly bottled wine, an almost acrid sweetness I wanted to savor on my tongue. 

But beyond all this there were his eyes, staring right into mine as he came, as though the act were uniquely mine, and began and ended only with my existence. It was intoxicating, flattering, and arousing as a wilderness of lovers. 

I caught him when his arms gave out, and held him against my chest. The sheer weight of him pressing down between my legs threatened to make me follow him into climax immediately, but I held off, wanting to think of Q in my arms. 

Several moments passed, and then without warning he slithered down my body and I was naked, my legs stretched out comfortably unashamed on either side of his dark head. 

"You have to come in my mouth," he whispered. 

"Do I?" And though I managed a wry tone his words had me on the brink of climax again. 

"Yes." And then his warmth was around me, and I lost it completely, screaming his name as my hands fell back into unmelting snow. 

I felt nothing but pleasure, no fear, no worries, no little voice telling me this was a bad idea, nothing but the slick heat of his mouth on me, and the solid, comforting weight of his hands on my hips. I wanted it to last forever, while at the same time I wanted it to be over so we could do something new. 

All I actually did was lie there panting for a long moment, my fingers idly combing through his hair as I felt his breath warm against my thigh. Such a simple Human comfort, this closeness, and one that I've fought and denied for so long. 

And what of Q, I thought then. What did he think of this moment, easily the most vulnerable moment of lovemaking? Did he like lying there? Did he feel as safe as I did? Was this all as timeless for him as it was for me? I hoped so. I hoped so very desperately. I wanted him to know this part of sex as well, wanted him to know everything I knew about sex, and I wanted to learn everything he could teach me. 

"Q?" I finally asked, when the time seemed right. "Are we in the snowglobe?" 

I could feel the puff of warm air as he chuckled. "Who knows? The whole universe could be a snowglobe." 

"Ahh," I replied, trying to sound sage, "The Unified Toy Theory." 

"First proposed by a Trindarken scientist in the Late Middle Dynasty. Poor fellow; he was laughed out of the Academy." 

This was utterly absurd and I reminded myself of something else I'd both missed and denied myself. How long had it been since I'd laughed with a lover? 

"I heard one account that he ended up making an imprudent marriage to a grocer's widow and finally died in poverty, never to know that only ten years later, his theory became all the fashion." 

"You're a storyteller, Jean-Luc!" Q said with delight, as he moved up to lie next to me. "What more don't I know about you?" 

"I think I might ask you the same question," I replied, stretching a bit along and against him. "For so many years you've come into my life, challenging and tormenting me, and all the while making me care about you, making me want you. I think if we continue this story between us, it would only be fair to say that you've bewitched me, Q." 

"I could say the same," he drawled, and yet even in that patently dry tone I heard the surprise he felt at being there, and the incredible joy... 

More than anything there was that joy. 

I've never known anything like it. 

I suppose, had I, I would have been married long ago. Is this what Beverly and Jack, Deanna and Will, Geordi and Leah all feel for each other? Is this what people in love feel? No wonder I've always been unable to imagine the commitment two spouses share. No wonder I've never been willing to give up my command or compromise my life for another. This is love, and I knew it then, and instead of being frightened, I knew only the joy that reaffirmed the very reasons I should be frightened, but wasn't. This is love. 

I kissed him then, long and hot and deep and again so sweet I suspected the authenticity of the moment. I wanted it to last longer than a breath could remain in my body, and it seemed the snow fell more slowly, the air holding us all up and together, and it fueled the joy yet again. The arousal of my body as it stirred anew, pressing against his slick, hot skin, was secondary to the elation of the moment, and yet it was the most aroused I had ever been. 

Q's eyes, when I saw them again, were round with wonder, and I knew without asking of the gratitude he held for me that he could feel that particular emotion. 

"How are you doing this?" he murmured, and only then did I understand. 

I was slowing time down, as Anij had shown me. I was using that power of my mind to be here as long as possible with Q. 

Then he smiled into my own wonder, and kissed me on my nose and lips and neck, whispering gently, "If you'll allow it, there were be an eternity of moments like this, Jean-Luc." 

I was taken aback. I hadn't really gotten used to slowing time, in fact, until this moment, I'd only managed it once by myself, while playing the flute. As I looked at him in some confusion, things around us suddenly sped up to normal again. I couldn't help my smile. 

"Only if you're the one who manages time," I said. "I'm still very much an amateur." 

He rolled his eyes. "Some amateur," he said stroking my hip lightly. "And I wasn't only talking about time, you know." 

I knew -- How could I not? -- what he was offering me. A gift that made the Bak'u's secret metaphasic fountain of youth look minor. At Q's side I could have true immortality, and explore the entire universe. It would be, it was... 

"Terrifying," I said, finishing my sentence out loud. "The concept is more than a little frightening." 

"It's not something you have to right this second." He smiled a little sheepishly. "I've wanted this moment, and you, for so long that I'm getting greedy and grabby." 

I shook my head, frowning slightly. "Q, that will never do. There are certain protocols that go with sex, you know." 

"Oh, I know," he shot back, a decidedly sly smile on his face. "Things like...Who fucks who first?" 

As much as I wanted to keep playing the game I'd started, I couldn't help the way I pressed against him upon hearing his words. It didn't matter to me who went first, but I was beginning to think that it had to happen pretty soon. And I wasn't sure of Q's experience. How much had he done this as a Human? Had he done this as a Human? 

_He must have,_ I told myself. 

"I told you that you could have whatever you want," I said. "I meant it." 

To my surprise, he looked a little confused. 

"Well, to tell the truth." he said, and then fell silent. 

"Ten years spent studying Humans and you never..." 

"I never thought it was all that interesting a thing," he replied and now his voice was defensive. "Unless you were involved, and you couldn't be, and I knew that if I watched you I'd hate each and every woman you'd ever been with, which would have been dangerous to them as well as a good way to piss you off, and..." 

I leaned forward and stopped the rush of words with a kiss. Slow and hard, my mouth moved against his. I was determined, but I also wanted to give him enough space to back out. He didn't, and I moved against him, still kissing him hard as my mind went in a dozen different directions. 

Which would be better for him? Which would he enjoy more? Which would make him feel less ignorant? I assumed he had a basic idea of what men did together, but did he? Could I ask without hurting his feelings? 

And I realized something very important. I was thinking of him and not of myself. I was putting him ahead of my own wishes, to the point where I wasn't didn't even look at my wishes. Of course I wanted to come again, but that could wait all night if it needed to. 

After all, though Q had doubtlessly experienced forms of sex beyond my ability to comprehend, he had, by a show of self-restraint that astounded me and touched me very deeply, stayed away from Human sex. In this matter, as in all things Human, I had the greater knowledge. I had been with, I admit, a broad variety of women, and had done with them, at one time or other, just about all the things that a woman and a man intent on giving each other pleasure can do. 

I knew so much more about myself than Q, in this respect. I knew that I loved to be kissed all over, but that sucking on my fingers did nothing. I knew I hated pain, but a little roughness right before climax was enjoyable, as long as my partner enjoyed it as well. I knew that I adored having my back and scalp stroked, and that after sex my nipples became extremely sensitive. I knew all these things, and I knew that I had given up enjoying a great many of them with age and command. 

So I put my erection out of my mind, as much as I could, and thought of Q's body, Q's inexperience in this one area, and Q's need to know that I wanted him. 

"Q," I whispered, "I'd like very much to be inside you. Then, if you like, you could return the favor." 

His eyes were so dark, and as they looked at me in the dim starlight reflected by the swirl of falling snow, they seemed to hold fairy lights, like a Chinese garden. 

But they were also undeniably wary. 

"I want to know you're inside me," he said, and it was said with full candor, "but it will only mean anything if I'm really Human, as much as I can be." 

I smiled, unable to help myself feel joy once again. 

"But," Q shifted against me, "you haven't fucked a man before, and if you hurt me...I really don't like pain, Jean-Luc." 

"I know the basics, Q, and I've had practice on female lovers I wouldn't have hurt for the world. Besides, if you feel any discomfort, any at all, tell me, and I'll stop." 

Q frowned. "I won't want you to stop." 

"Then I'll alter what I'm doing." 

Q considered this a long moment, then nodded and drew his legs up, bracing himself. "All right. Go for it." 

I managed not to laugh or gafaw, but it was difficult. He looked as though he were readying himself for an anal probe. Gently, but firmly, I put my hands on his thighs, feeling their strength, and eased his legs down to the bed. 

"No, no, Q. Shhhh. Just lay there a while. I want to make love to you." 

"And do you, Jean-Luc?" he asked, a slight challenge there. "Do you love me?" 

"I'm an idiot," I murmured, more to myself than to him. "Love you, Q?" My voice was stronger now. "Of course I do, and I should have told you by now." I had to smile. "I guess I'm just as greedy and grabby as you are, only in a different way." 

"You? Greedy and grabby for me? You love _me?_ " 

I looked down at him then and shook my head. "How could I not love you? How could I not want you? Endlessly challenging, endlessly fascinating...my God Q, you're only everything I've been looking for all my life and had given up on finding." 

"Oh," he said, his voice still surprised. Then he smiled and I felt my heart pound. "I love you too, you know." 

"Yes," I replied, knowing my voice conveyed my joy. "I do know. That's why this is so right and why I didn't fight it. Somehow, I knew." 

"So brave," he teased a little. 

I could feel a flush burn its way across my face. 

"Well, you are," he said. "I'll tell you over and over, until you actually believe it." 

"Right now?" I asked, my hand moving across the skin of his hip. It really did feel as smooth as the silk on the bed and as he moaned a little, I bent and kissed him, right at the hip bone. 

"Uh...perhaps it can wait." 

I kept kissing that skin, moving my mouth slowly inward. "You sure?" I teased as I avoided his cock and began kissing the other hip. "I can stop." 

"But you won't," he said, his hands gliding over my back. I sighed and he chuckled. "You want this too, remember?" 

"That's the last thing I'd forget right now, Q." 

And then I forestalled any further conversation, at least on my part, by running my tongue along the underside of his erection. He moaned and I smiled to myself. I had no idea what to do here, but he certainly liked what I was doing. and it would relax him in one way and wind him up in another way. Exactly the combination that worked best , as I well know. 

So instead of taking him in my mouth, I teased him a little instead, placing kisses on that sensitive skin, licking my way around him as if he were candy. I felt almost absurdly young again, almost as if I'd been exposed to more metaphasic radiation, and I was having fun. 

When I looked up to see his reaction, I was relieved beyond measure to see that he was having fun as well. 

It occurred to me then, as it never has before in bed with a partner, that it was all for fun. Q had spoken of pain, or not wanting to be hurt, but that was as far away from this as can be imagined. The joy was transmuting into playfulness, while not being diluted. It was... 

"Magic," I said, a pronouncement upon everything, then drew a breath to explain. 

"Yes," he groaned, smiling at me even as his hips pressed up a bit, a silent entreaty for more. "Magic." 

I licked my way down to the joining of his legs, that swell which begins the buttocks, and licked lightly at the opening. Unlike real Humans, Q had almost no musky odor there, and for a moment I was chagrined. I had taken a shower before bed, but I was still Human. 

_And Q wants you that way,_ I told myself. _Besides, we can deal with all that later._

"Does it bother you so much?" 

I looked up. In this instant of hesitation, the threat of pain had returned to Q's voice and eyes. "Nothing bothers me about this, Q." 

He looked at me apologetically. "I don't want to fake anything, Jean-Luc, but we both know I'm not really Human." 

And I smiled. Q had provided the answer for both of us. "No, you're not Human. You're my Q, and I'm Human." 

He laughed, and I reached down to stroke that warm sac with my tongue before drawing one testicle gently inside my mouth, marveling at the softness there. I could smell his sweat and semen readily enough, and it was more intoxicating than any exotic perfume could hope to be. 

I slid my hands beneath him, palming the warm mounds of his backside, and kneading, listening to him moan, before I let my lips nibble their way to his cockhead, lapping just a bit at the moisture there. 

"Which would you rather," I asked, "my going to the replicator for lubricant, or your whipping some up?" 

A heavy silver bowl appeared at my elbow, filled with fragrant warm oil. I laughed, and Q joined me, as I dipped my right hand inside. It felt amazing. 

"It's edible," Q whispered, and he was still watching at this point, still uncertain of my response. 

"Really?" I asked, delighted. I drew my hand up his body, letting the oil dribble a narrow path, and anointed his right nipple. As those dark eyes watched and sparkled and the pin-pricks of snow still fell around us and on my back, I reached up with my mouth and lapped. The oil tasted of honey and rosemary. Underneath, Q tasted even better. 

Q's body shuddered, and when I put the oil on his left nipple, he stopped breathing until that long, low moan of delight when my mouth sought another taste of the oil and my lover. 

"I love you," I said, and this too tasted delicious in my mouth. I rose even higher on his body to share the tastes with him, kissing him deeply, with all the passion I had. "I love you, Q." 

He raised his right hand, first resting it against the side of my face, then, slowly, exactingly, smoothing it over the line of my scalp, a perfect caress. 

"You've slowed time down again," he whispered. And he was right. I could see the slow-motion fall of the snow, the lingering kisses now of the melting flakes, even the tiny rise of steam from our flesh as each bit of ice turned to vapor. My heart now beat in a deep wilderness of rhythm, and as I thought of being inside him, of the heat of him, the reality of Q in my bed, trusting and loving me, time slowed even further, and all seemed frozen and warm and good. 

Another kiss, and then his nipples again: honey and rosemary, while my cock pressed urgently against his hip. 

I sat up then, still touching him. His glance flicked to my cock and then he looked back at me and smiled. 

"You mind?" he asked, gesturing to the bowl of oil. 

I couldn't answer through my initial deep breath, but then I was nodding and watching as he dipped his fingers in the oil. He sat up and reached out for me and it took everything I had to keep from thrusting hard into that warm slick hand. He laughed and tightened his fingers around the base of my cock, before stroking me with his other hand. 

"I was right," I managed to stammer out. 

"About what?" he asked and I could tell that he was proud of exciting me this much. 

"That you know the theory." 

"I studied with only one man in mind," he admitted. "It was nothing until I thought of doing it with you." 

"I'm so glad," I admitted, "that I've only been with women. And from now on...only you." 

"That's right." He was trying for menacing, but instead he simply sounded smug. 

Not that I cared. He could have said just about anything as he sat there, stroking my cock, his fingers seemingly mapping out and learning each centimeter of skin. He found hot spots, some I knew and even a few no one had ever found. Or maybe it's simply that I'm more sensitive to his touch than I ever have been before. It certainly seems so. 

Finally, I had to reach down and grab his hand. "Q, if you keep that up, I'll come the minute you let go of me." 

He got a "should I?" look on his face, but then smiled and leaned back. A folded piece of paper appeared in my hand. 

"What the devil?" 

"Open it." 

I did and then laughed helplessly. There, in a perfectly formal and embossed script, were the words: "Fuck me now, Jean-Luc." 

"Now that you have the engraved invitation..." he began. 

I silenced him by bending over and kissing him. We both rolled a little, sliding against the sheets, and then I was lying between his legs, and his hands were busy on my back, stroking me, teasing me, caressing me until I wanted nothing more than to plunge inside him and lose myself. 

I didn't, of course. 

But I went as fast as I could. My hands went back into the oil, slathering themselves with it, and then Q's legs spread further, with a moan, seeking rather than bracing this time, and I reached for that opening again. It was amazing how I had lost the hesitation -- no, the abhorrence I would have felt for such an action years ago. Q's entire body had become incredibly arousing, gorgeous and just plain sexy to me, every part of it. 

"You're lovely, Q, do you know that?" I growled as a allowed my right thumb to press gently against the softly furled ring. 

"Yes," he moaned, "but I had no idea your Human -- ohhhh -- aesthetics would allow you to..." and here he just started moaning steadily, and I think I nodded while -- I'm certain of this part -- I slipped my index finger inside him. 

He was tight and hot around my finger, as I expected, but against there was that sense of sweetness. It wasn't a taste now, but a feeling, as though I were touching the finest satin in the universe. It simply couldn't be real, I thought, and yet as I caressed him inside, I felt the imperfections of the Human body. There were...ripples and bumps, tissue and muscle. It was only the slickness, I thought, perhaps the oil. 

And then I realized what it was. 

Q was allowing me to prepare the way for me to be inside him. What else could it feel but perfect, wonderful, satin and silk and thelrin, blood-hot and welcoming me? I slipped in another finger in time, then began to twist slightly. 

Meanwhile, I was busy kissing his stomach. I had started by tracking down the traces of the oil I had dribbled, reveling in the sweet-on-sweet taste of Q's oiled skin, but then I had made an astonishing discovery. 

Q is ticklish. 

Not like a child is, squealing and running away, but ticklish in that my kisses made him giggle, just barely, and squirm, deliciously. He gasped as I nibbled along his abdominal muscles, and moaned my name as I dipped my tongue into his navel. I got a third finger inside him even as my left hand was dribbling oil inside that round indentation, and as I lapped the honey/rosemary/Q out like the delicacy it was, he writhed and pressed up against my tongue and down again my hand. 

"I love this!" he shouted suddenly, as I sat up and got into position. He grabbed his own knees and pulled his legs back -- the thought of his rolling over was insupportable to us both -- and I lifted him up slightly, settling him down on a pillow from the top of my bed. 

I tried to pause, to think of what it meant to be inside Q, but I couldn't wait, and neither could he. I nudged him at first, the tip of my cock against his anus. He nodded and panted, and I was breathing rather fiercely myself, and then I pushed inside, guiding myself with my hand, and the hot ring pressed around my cockhead, then slowly down the shaft, down to my balls, while the rest went on deeper and hotter, inside. 

Inside Q. 

All the way in, I looked down at him, a little worried that I might have hurt him. His eyes were wide and there was a faint frown on his face. 

"Q?" 

"It's..." His voice trailed off. "I've never felt anything like this." He blinked and then smiled. "Do you have any idea how precious a new experience is to a Q?" 

If he hadn't been smiling and if his legs hadn't been wrapping around my body, I'd have been more worried about being nothing but a new distraction for a bored god. As it was, I could tell that he was enjoying what I had done so far. 

As if confirming my thought, he reached around and grabbed one of my hips. "More," he demanded in a husky voice. "Fuck me more, Jean-Luc." 

I smiled down at him. "It isn't uncomfortable?" 

"No." 

"Are you sure?" I asked. 

"Yes!" 

"Because I wouldn't' want to hurt you." 

"Jean-Luc?" 

"Yes, Q?" 

"Will you stop being such a tease and fuck me? Now!" 

I laughed. God. It felt as though I had a lifetime of laughter saved up -- or at least a decade or so -- to share now with Q. I had wanted to laugh at his flamboyance how many times? Laugh at his Worf-comments and his ridiculous sneering at Riker. 

I just let my body go, but instead of laughter my hips thrust forward, and I was so deep inside him I felt buried in him, as though his presence were blocking out the cold sky, providing me with shelter I hadn't even realized I desired. 

And yet somehow I felt filled with stars. Abruptly, I simply couldn't wait to see him come. 

He was tight, of course, and hot, but his tightness was perfection, just the right amount of pressure, and his heat was a furnace. Perhaps, I thought, as much as I could think at that moment, he wasn't all Human, but still Q inside, and I was fucking all that energy I had seen in him. 

He certainly had no intention of laying still on the bed. As I got into my rhythm, happily pounding inside him, his body undulated and reverberated every movement, until we were a waltz, if not a reel, in synchronicity. 

His hands fluttered over his own stomach, then reached up and pinched my nipples, then grabbed the sheets, then pounded on the mattress, then flew into the air, then split apart: one went into his own hair, raking the dark locks back, while the other grabbed the base of his rocking penis and slapped it against my stomach. 

"So good," he moaned, his eyes never leaving my face. "So damn good, Jean-Luc." 

"God yes," I moaned. "So good!" 

Bracing myself on one hand, I reached down and began stroking his cock. He let out a yell and I could feel his muscles tighten around me. It was sheer perfection, being there with him like that, and I knew that I'd want it again and again. 

"Always...love you," I managed to gasp. 

"YES!" he shouted and then he was coming into my hand. 

I had to stop then and just watch. I had done this; I had given him all this pleasure. I should have felt smug, and maybe I did a little, but mostly I felt gratitude that he had saved this for me. 

The thought was too much, and I could vaguely hear myself shouting something incomprehensible as I came, pouring myself into the heat and energy of him, trying without words to let him know how much this meant. 

And then something happened. 

I got through. 

Somehow, I knew that I'd reached him, reached his mind and that he felt what I had wanted to convey. 

The snow around us flared and sparked and I felt the form underneath me shiver. Some of my worry must have shown on my face, because he smiled up at me, a brilliant, joyous smile. 

"All that?" he asked, his arms pulling me down to lie on top of him. 

"And more," I replied, kissing his shoulder. 

"More?" he breathed into my ear. "Right now?" 

I chuckled, then hissed when his fingers brushed over my sensitive cock. 

I couldn't get aroused again that quickly, and besides, I wanted to enjoy the afterglow a bit. But when I pulled back to look with some worry into his eyes, he only smiled at me, kissed me, and then let his arms come up to wrap around me. 

I drifted, plain and simple. I felt completely safe, completely loved and understood and accepted. It was all one package, I suppose. And the snow fell all about us as though each snowflake were a promise of that moment and a hundred billion moments to come. 

I became aware, very slowly, that Q was humming something. 

It was sort of low, but not rumbling, incredibly soothing, and yet intriguing. I had heard it before somewhere, I suppose. I tried absently to place it, then let it wrap around us and intertwine with the falling snow. 

When I raised my head again he was silent, and smiling at me. 

I stretched up easily and kissed him, honey and salt, and suddenly I knew what I was associating that taste with. 

Q's eyebrows raised at my laughter, but despite all we had done it was hard to admit: 

"You taste like Maman's kitchen." 

Q's eyes went a little round, then he shrugged with an impish smile. "Better, I suppose, than saying I taste like chicken." 

"Did you do it on purpose?" 

"Do what? Taste like a kitchen? No, I assure you." 

I shook my head. "But it was my favorite thing, to sit there in the kitchen, telling her about how I would one day roam the stars, while she made dinner. And I haven't thought of it in years." I eyed him suspiciously. 

"Honestly Jean-Luc, I really have no idea of what I taste like. And if I did have this ulterior motive in mind, do you think I'd have tasted like something associated with your mother? How Freudian of you." 

I smiled then, a little sheepishly. "I have a hard time believing in luck, Q." 

"Luck, Jean-Luc, has nothing to do with us." 

"Next you're going to tell me there's no such thing as coincidence." 

"No, he replied, looking me straight in the eye. "I'm going to tell you that you're awfully cute when you're avoiding a subject." 

I sighed and moved off him, but only far enough so that I could press up against his side. "Cute?" I said as I draped an arm across his chest. "Cute?!" "The little bantering routine you do. It's cute." 

I drew a deep breath. 

"All right Q, you tell me what I did there." 

"Fucked me," he replied instantly, grinning. 

"Cute," I said. "Very cute." 

"You...really wanted to reach me, didn't you?" 

"Oh yes." I looked at him. "It was so important that you know how much meaning that moment had." 

He nodded, but looked a little worried. 

"If I'd known... Nah, I'd have done this anyway." 

I didn't say anything. 

"Jean-Luc, I really don't think there's much you couldn't do if you put your mind to it." 

I have to admit that I felt a little alarmed and intrigued. "My mind," I asked, "that's what you’re talking about isn't it?" 

He nodded. "Although I'm not to blame for all of it. Anij gave you a bit of a jump-start." 

I tried to think about the serious ramifications of what Q was suggesting, but right about then I had noticed that Q's firm body was so relaxed against mine, soft in a way I'd felt only with women who were either not Human or extremely in shape. I liked it, because there was somehow more of this feeling with Q. 

And it was also about this time that I realized it was his turn, this time. 

"Q." 

"Yes?" 

"Doesn't it ever confuse you, the way you're all called that?" 

Q frowned at me, evidently feeling I had strayed off- topic. "We know which one of us we mean when we say it." 

"So when you introduce me to your friends," I murmured, reaching over now to nibble on his neck a bit, "and I say I'm Q's lover, you won't think I'm talking about another Q?" 

Q stared at me with some incredulity, then laughed. "Am I dreaming or something? Have you been taken over by an alien?" 

I smiled and drew my tongue over the curve of his chin. "What do you think?" 

"I think I've turned mortal, died, and gone to Heaven." 

He moved then, flipping and rolling us over so that I lay sprawled out beneath him. God. It was still snowing. 

"Tell me what you want," he whispered, and there was a lovely raggedness to the sound. "Anything you want me to do to you." 

"Touch me all over," I whispered back. "Kiss me and love me and then take me." 

His eyes rolled and he groaned theatrically and then he was kissing and touching me all at once. His hands are large and warm and quite strong, and his fingers so nimble. 

God, his hands. I can't believe them. So clever. They know me, you realize. You must realize...they know everything about me. Much more than I knew, in all my long life alone... 

And so when he had me spread my legs and open myself to him, I felt nothing but anticipation, if not downright need, to see what he would do next. 

Q was still looking into my face. It's quite intoxicating the way he always does that when we're making love. I don't feel haunted or oppressed, or even watched so much as...cared for. He's so careful, so loving. And when he whispered that I was beautiful, I wanted to laugh, blush, and come all at once. 

I did laugh, in fact, and I might have blushed a bit too. But then his hands were gliding along my thighs and I couldn't help arching my hips a little. He took the invitation for what it was and one hand, soothingly slick with oil, began to stroke my cock. I shuddered and gasped and thrust into that hand, wanting more, but also wanting him inside me. 

And then, a finger teased me ever so gently, and I moaned. 

"You don't have to be that careful," I managed to say. "I've done this before." He looked hurt. "I thought you said you hadn't." 

"Never with a man," I said, sure that the blush was back. 

"Really?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and camping it up a bit. "You'll have to tell me all about it someday." His finger touched me again, eliciting another moan. "In lots of detail." 

"Some...other time...Q." 

He was still gentle, of course. I wanted to grab him and make him go faster, wanted him to just move inside me and fuck me hard. But I knew he wouldn't, that, just as I had, he was putting me and my comfort first. 

_I love you,_ I thought at him. 

His eyes closed and he shivered as if I'd caressed him. 

_You're so perfect,_ he replied, his mental voice caressing me now. _So amazing._

At the same time, he slid a second finger inside me, and I found myself pushing against it, wanting more and more. 

"Yes," he murmured, with a little of his old menace in his voice. "You want me, don't you?" 

Knowing that it was safe, that he was as happy about my need as I was, I nodded eagerly. 

"Need it," I murmured. "Come on Q, I'm right here, all spread out under you, waiting for you to fuck me..." 

My voice trailed off as he slid another finger inside me. I could feel myself opening up to let him in, could feel the remembered burn, and the faint ache. He remained still until even the ache was gone, leaving nothing in its wake but heat and desire. 

And then, while I watched, he used his other hand to oil his cock. 

_You're getting ready to put that inside me,_ I thought at him, and snickered a little when his hand faltered. 

"Yesss," he hissed at me, the menace a little stronger, for both of us knew it was only a game, "inside your tight little body, where you can't escape me." 

"What makes you think I want to go any...ohhhhh..." I was looking at that glistening cock as he positioned himself. It was overwhelming and intoxicating and I felt like my heat was being squeezed through some sort of vortex and I loved it. "Fuck me, already!" 

He chuckled and looked impossibly smug, and I growled at him. 

His eyes flashed. "This is the first time I'm going to fuck you, Jean-Luc. The first time of an eternity of pushing myself inside you, to taste you, to own you, to be owned by you. This is the last moment of your life when you won't have been the man I fucked." 

My hips lifted with his words. My cock twitched with each hard consonant. I'd never wanted someone so much it tasted like defeat before. My hands were grasping at him. And yet this was all wonderful. 

"Empty," I whispered, watching his eyes cloud. "As empty as you were before I filled you up." 

His eyes dropped a moment, then looked up again with love: an incredible emotion on that face. "And I carry you inside me...always," he whispered, and then the tip of his cock brushed my opening, then nudged, then pressed inside, and I willed everything I had to relax, to draw him inside me. The pressure increased, burned slightly, and then I felt him slide inside, deeper and deeper, bending over me, his heat inside and around me, turning the snow into steam. 

He pressed further and further until just that moment when I could take no more, and his testes were pressed against my body, and I had him fully inside. 

He rested a moment, and the thoughts which passed between us were all love and joy. I knew then what Counselor Troi feels everyday of her life, and at once envied and pitied her. To feel this with Q was heaven. To feel it with another would be rape. 

I spread my legs a little wider, as wide, in fact, as I could. 

_Fuck me more,_ I told him, and the hard withdrawal and push of his body answered me. 

I had thought I was prepared for this. Oh, to be sure, I knew it would be different, more significant because it was Q, but I thought I'd know what my body would feel. 

I was wrong. 

It was so different, in so many ways, that, even now, it's hard to figure them all out. The heat of course: he was hot inside me, hot and hard and flesh. But there was more to it; this was real. I could feel the reality of it each time he pulled out and each time he moved back in. Flesh against flesh, Q inside of me, our bodies meeting and then parting only to meet again...there simply are no words to describe it. 

I had to let him know. 

"So much better," I whispered. "It was never like this." 

"Good," he growled. "I want to spoil you, make it so good that you'll never want anyone else. Make you need me." 

"Oh God, yes!" I cried out. "I need you, need this...just like you need me." 

"I do," he said, increasing his pace. He was driving into me faster now, a hard steady rhythm that threatened to shatter me. "Need to be...buried in you...fucking you..." 

"More," I demanded. "More, Q!" 

I could hardly believe it was me saying those words. It was far easier to accept that I was letting Q fuck me than to realize that I was telling him how to do it. 

_Look what you've done to me,_ I thought at him. _Turned me into a demanding, greedy lover._

"Greedy for me," he replied aloud. "Demanding me." 

"You," I replied. "More of you...damnit Q...harder..." 

And he gave me what I wanted, and I suppose it should have hurt. Maybe he was using his powers, except that it was so...raw, so real. He slammed inside me, and it was so hot, the best sex has ever been or could ever conceive of being. Q's hips moved almost viciously, jerking, forcing himself inside me, except that I wanted it all. I wanted whatever he had to give me. It's a wonder, somehow, that I didn't break apart. 

The heat from the friction of his cock in my body had spread out instantly, as an explosion, throughout my whole body, my whole consciousness, reaching my fingers and toes and dreams all at once. He became Sex to me, and Love, and Lust, and Desire. I truly worshipped him with my body, and felt him adoring me in return. 

"Ohhh! Your thoughts! I can feel what you're thinking!" He slammed again and again inside and he was so on top of what I was feeling, pushing me right where I wanted, where I needed. I could have come a dozen times, except he kept pushing it up higher and higher. 

And it wasn't just his cock inside me. His hands were strong and sure on my thigh and hip. His eyes caressed, held, burned and comforted me. His shoulders glistened where the snow fell and vaporized, his black hair stark against the backdrop of white. His full lips were open and panting and pulled back from his teeth. His neck was corded and pulsing with his heartbeat. His chest was flexing with the strain throughout his body. And everywhere he shone with sweat. 

I wanted it to go on forever, but I had to let go. I had to give in, and with a groan I came, pouring myself out, feeling everything I could feel, loving him. 

I tightened around him, and he felt suddenly enormous in me. His rhythm faltered, he sagged, and then he thrust a final time, and I felt the hot pulse and then the slow, heated seeping of his cum deep in my body. 

And I felt more, a wave of love and desire and need and joy that washed over my mind until I was drowning in it. I couldn't help responding as much as I could, spilling my own feelings into his mind. I have no idea how I knew what to do, but, at the time, it seemed a natural extension of our lovemaking. We'd come in each other's bodies, in my Human fashion, and now we needed to be in each other's minds, in his Q fashion. 

In that strange place where we found ourselves, emotions had their own colors and scents and tastes and textures. Trying to describe what happened with mere words is almost impossible. Lust is strong and bright and spicy, like a handful of cinnamon red-hots or a blistering salsa. But it's also rough, like raw silk, and hard like polished marble. 

And so it was with all the other emotions we shared. I felt his prickly, edgy, sour jealousy toward all the women in my past, and I did my best to counter it with the warm, smooth velvet of my adoration for him. I know he felt my sticky, clammy, nagging worries about what this meant to us and he reassured me with the steady, unyielding, granite assurance that he'd be with me through it all. 

It went on and on, growing and filling each of us the way we'd already filled each other physically. It was like nothing that had ever happened to me before and I knew through his feelings that he'd never felt this before either. It was as unique to each of us as the physical lovemaking had been. Here, we could be no one other than Jean-Luc and Q, and there had never been anyone here but the two of us. 

It built up, growing and deepening, until neither of us could take any more. I know that our capacity to be with each other like that will grow in time, just as I know that I'll learn to take his cock in my mouth. In fact, it was that thought and the joy I felt at an eternity of learning new ways to love each other that pushed us over the edge. 

Light flared and pulsed between us, burning us down to our truest selves before we finally had to let each other go. It was a climax so unlike a physical climax, and yet it had the same urgency and hunger of an orgasm. The release was there, and after, we both felt that sated, indolent feeling known to lovers everywhere. 

When I opened my eyes, it was still snowing. 

I smiled into the white swirls, realizing at last that it was recycling itself, somehow, as though it were a snowglobe, so that the snow wasn't building up. 

It all made me wish I had Q's snowglobe in my hand, and then, I smiled as the cool glass pressed against my palm. I brought up the little curio and shook it, watching the snow inside swirl and fall. I turned and smiled into Q's dark eyes. 

"It's like having my own genie," I murmured. "I don't know if I can get used to it, but it's nice." 

And Q's eyes looked worried. 

"I'm only kidding, Q," I said softly, reaching over to kiss him. 

He allowed the kiss, but didn't respond, and when I pulled back with a frown, he looked quite worried indeed. 

"Q?" 

"Uh, Jean-Luc? I didn't do that." 

I smiled. "Didn't do what? Fuck me? I think it was you." 

He gave me a tight smile, then looked almost afraid. "I didn't give you the snowglobe." 

I chuckled, but in my defense, I want to say I was only being so slow in realizing what was going on because I was stupid with sated lust. "You gave it to me." 

Q shook his head. "No, I gave it to you originally, but I didn't give it to you just then." 

"Just when?" 

"Just now!" 

I held up the glass dome and shook it. "But it appeared in my hand." 

"I know." 

"Q..." I sighed in irritation. "Is there another Q in here or something?" 

"Sort of." 

That annoyed me, and the feeling cut through some of my hazy bliss. I looked around, and to give Q credit, he didn't laugh at me. 

"Where?" 

"Picard, you've been...you've come into your own, don't you understand?" 

And so I finally got it. "Are you going to pretend that I wished the snowglobe into my own hand, Q?" 

And he kissed me, deeply, and, to my concern, desperately. I realized even while I responded to the pressure of his lips that he was trying not to distract me, but to plead his case. 

And so I kissed him for some time, stroking his hair, murmuring his name. Only when he pulled back slightly, his eyes now so uncertain I wanted to start kissing him all over again, did I ask, gently, "Please explain yourself, Q." 

He nodded and looked a little miserable. 

"I love you," I told him. 

He smiled, and sighed. "Do you remember when I tempted Riker with the power of the Q?" 

"Of course." My tone, admittedly, was dry. 

"I didn't know at the time why the Continuum was interested in having me tempt him, then, at that place, on your ship, in front...in front of you. I cared only at the time that it was a way to impress them, when they were about to punish me for having failed so abysmally on my first mission to Humanity." He held up a hand. "I can explain the background later." 

I nodded and gestured for him to continue. 

"I also knew I was falling in love with you, and was terrified that the Continuum would realize that. I took the mission with Riker gratefully and tried not to give myself away, and it never really occurred to me what they were really after." 

His eyes were on mine in that way of his, and I could only look at him as best I could to say I accepted the truth he wanted to give me, whatever it was. 

"It was actually you they were testing, Jean-Luc. They knew what I had not told them, what I didn't want to tell them because I was so delighted in my discovery. It was one reason why I was falling for you." 

"What was, Q?" I urged, trying to stay patient but needing to know. 

"You, as many Humans will be...in a few thousand years or so, had the ability to become Q." 

I waited, but he was just looking at me in that frightened way again. 

"What?" I finally prodded. 

"Exposure to me, and to what Anij gave you, and what you've gotten in your own way from Deanna and Sarek and Spock, and all the other telepaths and telekenetics...you are able to be whatever you want, Jean-Luc. And now..." and here Q smiled brilliantly. "...you want to be Q. And so you are." 

I drew a deep breath, and for a moment found myself wishing I could go somewhere and just sit and think for a while. I instantly felt the tug of some strange force and controlled it very quickly, more than a little frightened by the whole thing. I looked at Q, who was sitting up and looking back at me. 

"What happened?" he asked. 

"I guess I have to learn to control what I wish for," I said. "I almost sent myself somewhere else." 

He nodded. "I don't think that control is going to be a problem with you," he said. "It certainly was with me," he added in a rueful voice. 

"Q?" 

"Yes?" 

I hesitated and then had to ask. "Were you born, or did you come into being as a Q? Or were you something else, a mortal like me?" 

He shook his head sadly. "I wish I knew." 

"You don't remember?" I asked. 

"None of us do. I'm pretty sure I was born a Q, because the only Q who remembers being something else is Amanda." 

He shrugged. "For all I know we sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus." 

I saw the bravado so clearly then, saw all his actions in a whole new light. All those masks and costumes and the different scenarios he'd thrown us into, all of them were an attempt to conceal the fact that there was no history for the Q. At least, not history as I thought of it. 

"Well," I said, putting all my certainty in my voice. "I know who you are. You're Q and I love you." 

"Do you have any idea how much I envy your 'history?'" he said, ignoring my attempt to make him feel better. 

"Don't," I said firmly. "The hell with my history, I'm too interested in the future. _Our_ future. And you do have a history, even if it's only with me." 

He nodded then. "Ten years of history that are more important to me that all the centuries before." 

Then he shot me a rather knowing look. 

"And, Jean-Luc, what is our future?" 

I smiled and let my hips arch against his body, brushing out spent cocks together. 

He shuddered and made his hands into fists, but I could tell that, while he appreciated the gesture, he wasn't going to be easily distracted. 

I sighed, but just to relax the moment. "Well, I suppose your offer to join the crew has expired. How do you feel about just hanging around and learning how to get along with the others?" 

It was jarring, how quickly Q's eyes turned sad. 

"Jean-Luc..." 

But I held up my hand, letting my fingertips rest on his lips. 

I saw. I didn't want to, but I saw what I should have seen from the beginning. 

The sense of loss pierced me, hot and sharp and merciless. Rather than resisting, I let it travel through, and knew I would feel that sadness for a long, long time. Perhaps forever. 

But you must understand this, even at the worst part, during that worst moment, I wouldn't have changed anything. The compensation was too great to have a second of regret. 

_I don't regret it, Q. Do you understand?_

He stared at me, and I knew he was trembling, though I was shaking just slightly myself. 

I also knew he was working very hard at believing me. I reached for him, drew him close, felt his warmth, breathed in the smell of him, felt the taste of him on my tongue. 

God, I knew I would miss the Enterprise. 

He kissed me, and I laughed into his mouth, thinking suddenly of Will sitting at last in my chair. 

_Number Two will probably break it or something._

I opened my mouth, drawing his tongue inside me to suck, gently. It twined around mine, a living thing, and I wrapped arms and legs around that body and soaked him in. 

Even now, I must say that the loss of my command pains me...and yet, I gave it up before, my log informs me, not long after I first took command of the Enterprise- D. True, I was under alien influence, but I know myself well enough to realize I was genuinely tempted by the offer the being provided -- to explore space as a creature of space. No need for ships and crews, just a community of others like me, and a universe to explore. 

How much more I am being offered...no, not offered. This isn't seduction, or bribery. Q is right. I chose to be what I am. I have selected this path for myself. 

Can you imagine what I'll learn? What I'll see? Perhaps in time I will choose mortality again. I'm not thinking of this as forever in cosmic terms...but I know I could easily live a thousand years with Q by my side. I can't believe how much I love him. 

In fact, he has promised...but I'm getting ahead of myself here. I must remember that in my heart I will always be a linear creature. 

I was soaking in the essence of him, enjoying him, and thinking about eternity without fear, then reached up just a bit and bit his earlobe sharply. 

"Ow!" He sat up and stared down at me. 

"What was that for?" he demanded. 

I smiled. "You're mine, and I wanted a taste." 

He glared at me, although I could feel his amusement and something else through our brand new link. 

"You liked that," I accused. 

"Maybe you should just turn the telepathy off, Jean- Luc." 

"Oh?" 

He grabbed at me and rolled over until I was once more beneath him. I twisted out of his grasp and wished for something. 

"I always thought it was too small," he said, looking at my now larger bed approvingly. 

He lunged for me then and tried to pin me down, and I fought back, never trying to hurt him, but certainly enjoying the feel of our bodies moving together. It was breathless and a little sweaty, and had one major advantage over the wrestling I did at the Academy: 

Here, no matter who ended up on top, neither of us could lose. 

And, of course, I never got this worked up while wrestling. 

In the end, I won. And it was a fair fight; he didn't let me win, there were no powers or anything like that. I ended up straddling him, my hands pinning his wrists to the bed. He spread his legs a little, obviously expecting me to take him as a sign of my victory. 

I smiled down at him and shook my head. While he looked at me curiously, I thought for a moment, and then moved back and up a little. 

"OH!" he yelled as I moved down onto his cock. "So good!" 

And it was good, better than good. I was fucking him, but he was fucking me and we were both lost in the pure physical sensation of his cock inside of me. So many ways to make love as Humans, even without the telepathy and the powers, so many ways for us to join together and become something greater than the sum of our parts. 

I rode him hard, and when I could tell he was close to coming, I moved even harder, my hands still clamped around his wrists. I was confident he was going to come before I did, until... 

"Yours," he gasped out. "And...you're mine!" 

I came then, screaming and pouring myself out all over his chest. Seconds later, he yelled my name and came inside me. It was so hot and so amazing that the aftershock took me by surprise, and I slumped into his arms, to be wrapped in warm darkness. 

You have to understand, this was the stuff of story- books, and I knew it. 

We dream of perfect love when we're children, and then of love and sex when we grow older...and then with maturity we give up these dreams. They're not real, and that lack of reality defines our universe and thus ourselves. But now...now I was getting the dream, and it changed the world around me as surely as it changed my very soul. 

Perhaps that is why I can give up the Enterprise. What purpose is there in pretending I'm going to live my old life when the very nature of existence has been redefined? 

What purpose is there is maintaining the maturity of mortality when immortal love is offered? 

There is no sanity that can withstand the madness of fantasy made not just flesh and bone but heart and soul. I could be anything with Q. I knew that. To deny it, to insist that I had to keep my life as it was simply because I had fought hard to make it so: That would be the insanity. 

For Starfleet, I would have died a thousand times over. For my crew, I have offered up my very soul. But what Q offered was not to be sacrificed for the wide vessel of eternity, or infinity. 

And besides, please, I am self-aware enough to know that, as much as I would like to believe that I could handle the sort of power I've developed, I cannot, not without the Continuum's help, a help I won't get from them without joining them. 

What would I do on my own? Get rid of the Borg, I suppose. 

And then what? The Cardassians? The Romulans? People who've looked at me sideways? People with no sense of humor? People who don't like Shakespeare? 

What would happen to art I don't like? To music I can't dance to? 

I've made my mark on the world as a Human. I've done my part. I may feel the call of duty, but that call now only appeals to my vanity. 

Besides, I will continue to strive for what is right, only now I must learn how to work for the benefit of Humanity as a Q, which means I can't give people what they need like some sort of god. I must find...other ways. 

And I knew all this as I collapsed on Q's body, a little sore inside. It occurred to me that I could use my powers now to heal myself, to fuck him again and again. It occurred to me that I should refrain from using my powers as much as possible until I learned better how to deal with them. It occurred to me that Q was there, waiting to be kissed again. 

"You," he said after a long kiss, "constantly amaze me." 

I raised an eyebrow at him. 

"I expected you to fight this more. In fact, I was terrified that you'd want to try to give up your powers, or insist that I take them from you. I didn't think you'd accept this so easily." 

"I'm dangerous, Q, not only to myself, but to my crew and the whole Federation." 

"You're being too hard on yourself. I doubt you'd really wipe out the Borg, if given a shot at them." He touched my face gently, his fingers tracing the curve of my cheek where the Borg hardware had once been joined to my flesh. "Of course, they deserve it for what they did to you." 

"Q..." 

"Just joking," he said, but his eyes were serious. 

"Maybe in several centuries, I could face the Borg, but now? No. And even if I could control my occasional need for vengeance, what would I do with my much more imperative needs for justice and compassion?" 

"I know," he agreed. "That's what I knew would trip you up once you ever managed to make the leap. You'd see some planet suffering through a natural disaster and go in and save them all." 

I smiled a little bitterly. "I like to think that I'd hold true to the Prime Directive, but how many times have I broken it?" 

He turned until we were lying side-by-side, still wrapped in each other's arms and legs. I smiled at him. 

"You know," I said, " the main reason I want to go with you has nothing to do with whether or not I can control my new-found abilities. I'm going 'out there' because that's where you're going. I can't ask you to stay here with me, cooped up in this primitive little ship of mine; both of us would be miserable with that." 

He smiled again, a private little smile. "Oh I don't know about that...Some of you have asked that." 

I know now what he meant, but at the time I was a little confused. "I guess I'm not enough of a Q to understand that." 

"You," he said, "aren't like any other Q. Or like any other Human. You are my Jean-Luc Picard, and I am your Q. You'll know how important that is sooner than you realize." 

"Are you trying to tell me that we belong together?" 

"And how." 

He refused to say any more, and as I leaned in for another kiss, I noticed something. 

It was snowing again. 

And so I hope you understand what this has all meant to me, and why I have to go, and why I don't ever want you to be anything but happy for me. 

I want to learn how to travel through a nebula as an eddy of energy. I want to learn how to understand the language of all sentient life. I want to learn to suck Q's cock down my throat. I want to learn how to tolerate being happier than I've ever been. 

Marta, my old dear friend who has meant so very much to me over the years, more than I have ever been able to tell you, you must be happy for me. I'm sending greatly abridged versions of this letter to others: to Will and Beverly and the rest of my command crew, to Marie, and to a few others. There will be questions and suspicions, and so very few people who care about me will understand. 

Tell them, if you can, that I did the right thing. 

Yours, 

Jean-Luc Picard 

*** 

She put the letter, written in his precise handwriting, down and looked out of the window. The stars streaked past her as the USS Sarasvati headed toward DS7, and her new assignment. She sighed and looked at the letter again. 

It had appeared on the nightstand in the middle of the night. Somehow she'd known who it was from without looking at it. And then she'd picked it up and memories had flooded her mind. Starbase Erhardt and Johnny and Corey and Marty and things that had never happened. 

In what she thought of as the real world, Marta Batenades knew that Jean-Luc had gotten stabbed in the chest during a bar fight and had only survived after hours of dangerous surgery. She could see his pale face in the station's infirmary as she sat by his bedside hoping he'd pull through. 

But now she could remember another world in which he'd avoided the fight, slept with her and generally acted unlike himself. And now, she knew the reason. He had been the man she knew now and not Ensign Picard. 

She smiled. There was a lot of Johnny, a lot of the wild young man she'd competed with and followed and loved as a friend, in this decision to just take off and go exploring with his new lover. There was certainly a lot of him in the details of the letter; it had reminded her of late-night bull sessions. Of course, there was also a lot of the respected Captain Picard, making his decision because he knew it was the one best thing he could do for the Federation he'd served most of his life. 

"Oh Johnny," she whispered to the stars outside. "Be happy." 

There was a faint flash of light behind her and she whirled around. 

There, on the nightstand was a snowglobe. She picked it up and looked closely at the scene inside. Two men, one tall and dark-haired, one shorter and bald, were walking forward, holding hands. As she peered even closer, she could see their smiles. 

And the snow swirled around them long after she put the globe down. 

The End


End file.
